The following history of Honduras focuses on events since European settlement. (For regional treatment, see pre-Columbian civilizations: Mesoamerican civilization; Latin America, history of; and Central America.)

Early history

When the Spanish arrived to colonize Honduras, the land was occupied by a variety of indigenous peoples, the most advanced of whom were the Maya. Gold stimulated Spanish conquest of the area early in the 16th century, and the Honduran gold-mining town of Gracias became the capital of Spanish Central America (the Audiencia de los Confines) in 1544. By 1548, however, the Spaniards had exhausted the gold, and Santiago (Antigua Guatemala) became the new capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala. Honduras, with its capital at Comayagua and agriculture the base of its economy, was a province of that kingdom (audiencia) within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In the 1570s, a silver strike in the highlands brought a rush of prospectors to Honduras, resulting in the rise of an important population centre at Tegucigalpa, which competed thereafter, especially in the 18th century, with Comayagua. However, agriculture, the enduring economic base of Central America, was slow to develop in Honduras. Development of Spanish society in the Honduras area was hindered by coastal attacks from the pirates and buccaneers endemic to the Caribbean Sea and eventually by a concerted British effort to control the coastal areas of Central America. For long periods the Spanish utilized a soft defense against the Caribbean threat, falling back to the highlands and to the Pacific coastal areas, which were generally closer to their network of communication and transportation. Thus, the British came to control the Caribbean’s Mosquito coastal region. The Sambo-Miskito peoples along the coast were the indispensable allies of the British in this endeavour. In the 18th century, however, the Spanish Bourbon kings made a sustained effort to recover the Caribbean coastal areas, and their success in the Gulf of Honduras was manifested by the completion of a fort at Omoa on the gulf by 1779.

Independence from Spain came in 1821 and from Mexico in 1823, when Honduras joined in the formation of the United Provinces of Central America. Friction between Liberal and Conservative factions soon undermined the federation, however. In general, the Liberals favoured republicanism, freer trade, less government regulation, removal of the Catholic clergy’s political and economic powers, and imitation of foreign models of development. Conservatives defended the clergy, leaned toward monarchism, mistrusted foreign models, and were generally more traditional and pro-Spanish in their outlook. In 1830 a Honduran Liberal, Francisco Morazán, became president of this federation, and for a decade he promoted Liberal policies that curtailed the traditional power and privileges of the clergy and increased agricultural exports. Conservative and popular opposition to Liberal policies led to the collapse of the federation, and Honduras declared its absolute independence on November 5, 1838. The prochurch Conservatives in Honduras took control under Francisco Ferrera, who became the first constitutional president on January 1, 1841. During the mid-19th century, despite its declaration of sovereignty, Honduras supported efforts to restore the Central American union, while its real independence was severely limited by its more powerful neighbours. Conservative domination lasted until the 1870s, during which time the church regained its former position and the Honduran government signed a concordat (1861) with the Holy See in Rome.

After 1871 the ascendancy of Justo Rufino Barrios in Guatemala influenced a return to liberalism in Honduras, where Marco Aurelio Soto, a Liberal, assumed the presidency (1876). In 1880 the Liberals promulgated a new constitution that sought to undo the work of the Conservatives, and they also moved the capital from Comayagua to Tegucigalpa. Five years later, Liberals in Honduras and elsewhere proved to be nationalists first and blocked an attempt by Guatemala to unify the isthmus by force. Liberals continued to dominate the country well into the 20th century, encouraging foreign investment and economic growth, although Honduras remained the poorest state on the isthmus.

The 20th century

In the first decade of the 20th century, Nicaraguan strongman José Santos Zelaya put Miguel Dávila into the Honduran presidency. This led in 1911 and 1912 to something more serious than periodic revolutions. The U.S. president, William Howard Taft, sent marines to protect American banana investments, which by this time had grown considerably, with three companies exploiting this Honduran product. All three made large capital outlays in the form of improved port facilities, railroads, workers’ settlements, and similar developments.

In 1918 Honduras declared war on Germany but took no active part in World War I. Thereafter, disenchanted Liberals and Conservatives formed the National Party to challenge continued Liberal rule. In 1932, following political unrest and economic decline caused by the Great Depression, National Party leader General Tiburcio Carías Andino was elected president and remained in office until 1949. Carías’s policies, however, differed little from Liberal political or economic policy.

Honduras declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy in December 1941. The wartime curtailment of shipping brought much economic distress; export surpluses of bananas, coconuts, and copra piled up, leading to widespread unemployment and consequent unrest. But the government was able to maintain itself, and it promulgated some beneficial reforms. Carías survived a revolution in 1947, but he soon turned the government over to his minister of defense, Juan Manuel Gálvez (ruled 1949–54).

Julio Lozano Díaz (1954–56) continued National Party rule, but political turmoil and military revolt in 1957 led to the congressional election of Ramón Villeda Morales (1957–63), a Liberal who brought some modernization to the transportation system and to labour legislation. In 1963 Colonel Osvaldo López Arellano overthrew Villeda and declared himself head of state, returning the National Party to power. In the summer of 1969 the Soccer War with El Salvador broke out, triggered indeed by a soccer (football) game but caused by severe economic and demographic problems. Though brief, the war dampened hopes for economic and political integration in Central America.

Honduras was ruled by military governments from 1963 until the election of Ramón Ernesto Cruz (1971–72). Cruz’s election resulted from the Soccer War, which Honduras had lost militarily. But López, chief of the armed forces, retained real power, and in December 1972 he removed Cruz from office. Pressured toward modernizing reforms by younger military officers, López astonished many by announcing, in January 1974, a reform program that included land redistribution. His program had little success, however.

López was discredited and forced to resign in 1975 because of an international bribery scandal; he was replaced by Colonel Juan Alberto Melgar Castro (1975–78). Honduras prospered modestly under Melgar, largely because of high earnings from the elevated world coffee market during those years. His administration was weakened, however, by a series of scandals.

General Policarpo Paz García, who attained power through a bloodless military coup in late 1978, pledged to continue Melgar’s policies, but he soon faced harder times. Central America entered a cycle of violence with the revolution in Nicaragua that overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle in July 1979 and the revolution in El Salvador that was under way in that same year. Honduras appeared to be an island of stability as its neighbours experienced guerrilla warfare. In November 1981 the country elected a civilian government after 17 years of almost continuous military rule.

The new Honduran president, Roberto Suazo Córdova of the Liberal Party, was a noted anticommunist who favoured strong relations with the United States. Hopes ran high for internal improvements, but these were dashed as Honduras became embroiled in the growing regional conflicts. Protests grew over the presence of Nicaraguan Contras (guerrilla fighters), who were using U.S.-sanctioned Honduran border areas as bases for attacks against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. There was also dissension over U.S.-run camps for training Salvadorans in counterinsurgency to combat the growing civil war in their country. (Honduras banned these camps in 1984.) The U.S. presence supported the further militarization of Honduras, and Honduran army chieftain Gustavo Álvarez Martínez appeared to be the real power there until 1984, when younger officers loyal to Suazo ousted the chieftain amid anti-American demonstrations in Tegucigalpa. Suazo’s government continued, however, to cooperate with the anti-Sandinista activities of the United States, and he received substantial economic aid in return, including U.S. construction of airports and other military installations. In the late 1980s Honduras joined the other Central American governments in a cooperative movement for regional peace. This brought increased pressure to restrict Contra activity and to reduce the U.S. presence in Honduras.

The U.S. government had hoped that its relations with Honduras would help establish the country as a model Central American democracy, but that image was tarnished in 1986 when another Liberal, José Azcona Hoyo, succeeded Suazo despite having received far fewer votes than the National Party candidate, Rafael Leonardo Callejas. In 1989, however, Callejas won election and took office in 1990, the first time in 57 years that an opposition government had taken office peacefully.

Callejas’s administration faced labour disputes, rising crime and violence, and charges of corruption. A major conflict between independent banana producers and Chiquita reduced banana exports in 1990, and by 1992 the annual per capita income in Honduras was only two-fifths of what it had been prior to the conflict. Severe economic and financial decline allowed the Liberals to sweep back to power in 1994 with Carlos Roberto Reina, whose conciliatory approach did not solve all the nation’s problems but nevertheless gained him wider support than Callejas had enjoyed, and the Liberals were able to win again in November 1997. The new president, Carlos Flores Facussé, an engineer with close ties to the United States, represented the more conservative wing of the Liberal Party and promised to continue the probusiness policies of his predecessors. In October 1998, however, Hurricane Mitch, one of the worst storms to strike the Western Hemisphere in recorded history, dumped torrential rains on the country, washing away crops, roads, and population centres throughout Honduras. The storm killed several thousand Hondurans, displaced in excess of a million persons, ruined the country’s economy and infrastructure, and caused widespread misery and unemployment. A massive international relief effort supported the reconstruction efforts, which occupied Honduras for the next several years.

The 21st century

Ricardo Maduro Joest of the National Party won the 2001 presidential elections. During his time in office, Honduras received debt relief and ratified the implementation of the Central America–Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA–DR) with the United States. José Manuel Zelaya Rosales of the Liberal Party took over the presidency in 2006.

Zelaya focused on fighting crime and the ongoing drug trade in the country. His administration extended the protection that allowed hundreds of thousands of Hondurans to continue working legally in the United States. Remittances from workers there accounted for about one-fourth of the Honduran gross domestic product. A longtime boundary dispute with Nicaragua was settled in 2007 by the United Nations, and it resulted in Honduras gaining sovereignty over four Caribbean islands. In 2008 Honduras joined the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (Alianza Bolivariana para las Américas; ALBA), a leftist alliance that was formed in 2004 by Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez.

On June 28, 2009, President Zelaya was ousted in a military coup for having forged ahead with a national referendum that, if passed, would have allowed him to revise the constitution and extend his nonrenewable presidential term. The military and the National Congress had opposed the referendum, which also had been declared illegal by the Supreme Court. Later that day, after the military flew Zelaya to Costa Rica, the National Congress voted him out of office and elected congressional leader Roberto Micheletti as acting president. The international community condemned the ouster, and on June 30 the United Nations passed a resolution that recognized Zelaya as the rightful president of Honduras.